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Recently, the Trust for Public Land outlined conservation related appropriations in recent bills in their 12/27/2007 edition of Washington Watch.  Some of these conservation programs that could benefit native prairie/grassland conservation and restoration include:

From the Omnibus Appropriations Package for FY 2008 signed by the President:

• Land and Water Conservation Fund: $154.339M
• State and Tribal Wildlife Grants: $73.83M

From the Senate version of the Farm Bill (awaiting a House/Senate conference and final version):

• Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program (FRPP): $97M per year
• Grassland Reserve Program (GRP): $48M per year
• Conservation Easement Tax Provision (making permanent the expanded tax incentive for conservation easement donations)

Read more at the Trust for Public Land.  Also, the National Wildlife Federation has similar update related to the new Farm Bill.

Envision a green cemetery in the middle of a restored tallgrass prairie, with native flowers blooming in the spring alongside lush native grasses.  Could you imagine a more beautiful way to spend eternity while helping to protect and restore an endangered ecosystem and provide habitat for grassland birds, butterflies, and other prairie wildlife?

Sales of plots in the conservation burial ground would fund the prairie conservation and restoration at the prairie cemetery and an adjacent tallgrass prairie remnant.  A conservation easement or outright ownership by a land trust would protect both the prairie cemetery and the adjacent prairie remnant in perpetuity.

Flat headstones would allow haying or cutting the prairie cemetery along with the native prairie remnant along side of it that provides the seed for the prairie restoration.

Biodegradable coffins and an absence of preservatives would make the project further green.  A certification from the Green Burial Council would help assure families that ecological practices were being followed.

Could you fund or be a partner in a green prairie cemetery project?  Contact the Native Prairies Association of Texas if so!

From Science News Online: "It took less than a century after John Deere unveiled his steel-bladed plow in 1837 for the North America prairie to all but disappear. For 20 million years, a nearly 1,000-mile-wide swath of unbroken grassland belted the continent’s midsection from northern Canada to Mexico. Now, only about 5 percent is left, mainly as mixed and shortgrass prairie in the Plains states. To the east, less than 1 percent of the original lush tallgrass remains, most of it as remnants in pioneer cemeteries and old railroad rights-of-way."

The article highlights tallgrass prairie restoration efforts, diversity of remnant vs. restored prairies, bison grazing and increased prairie diversity, and the possible effects of climate change on tallgrass prairies.

The full article by Leslie Allen in Science News Online (from the week of Dec. 15, 2007; Vol. 172, No. 24) requires a subscription to the print magazine

The LandScope America preview includes a tallgrass prairie map of the United States that shows the original area of the tallgrass prairies (before European settlement in the 1800’s) and the major known tallgrass prairie areas remaining.

The web site says: "Welcome to LandScope America, an exciting new online conservation resource. Planned for release in late 2008, this interactive website will bring together maps, data and stories about natural places and present them in highly dynamic and accessible formats. We hope the result will both inform and inspire conservation of America’s incomparable lands and waters. … LandScope America — a collaborative project of NatureServe and the National Geographic Society — is a new online resource for the land-protection community and the public."

Prairie Biotic Research, a Wisconsin nonprofit established in 2000 to foster biotic research in prairies, is funding a a Small Grants Program with grants up to $1,000 for the study of any grassland taxon in the USA.

To apply for a grant, contact Michael Anderson at Prairie Biotic Research, Inc., PO Box 5424, Madison, WI 53705, or by email at pbr-grants@tds.net for a 2008 Grant Application Form and instructions. 

Applications must be postmarked on or before January 3, 2008 to receive consideration.  Researchers who received PBR funding in 2007 are not eligible for 2008 funding.

Read this post for more information.

The City of Frisco is considering an prairie art installation entitled "Prairie Bells" by Bill and Mary Buchen of Son Arc, Inc as part of the Preston Road Phase 2 project.  The proposal includes landscaping with native prairie grasses and flowers, a "bell tree", and "a wind twister."

From the city’s project description: "Prairie Bells" celebrates the rolling tall grass Blackland prairie that the City of Frisco sprang from and commemorates each year since its founding in 1902.  …  Prairie habitats remain vital to Frisco’s future environment conservation as to its past.  Prairie Bells invites the public to explore the grasses and native plants surrounding the artwork.

For more information, see this story in the Pegasus News or read page 17 of the following city document.

Have fun and see tallgrass prairie at Houston area parks and preserves! 

The Houston Chronicle carried an article, "Get away from it all by heading to a park", that highlights several parks and preserves around Houston that include native tallgrass prairie: Brazos Bend State Park, Armand Bayou Nature Center, Houston Arboretum & Nature Center, Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge, and Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge.

See the Houston Chronicle article for more details!

The Nature Conservancy of Texas has purchased the 6,000-acre Fitzgerald Ranch in the High Plains of West Texas to protect habitat for lesser prairie chickens and other native wildlife found in the region. The Yoakum Dunes Project in the Texas High Plains will conserve 6,000 acres of shortgrass prairie.

See the Nature Conservancy press release and the Austin-American Statesman article for more information.

The energy bill currently in the U.S. Senate would require 21 billion gallons of biofuel from sources including prairie grasses by 2022.  Perhaps this will spur usage of diverse tallgrass prairie plantings for biofuel and carbon sequestration!

From a CNN article: 

"It also would rapidly ramp up the required production of ethanol, eventually to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, a sevenfold increase. At least 21 billion gallons must be from feedstock other than corn such as prairie grasses and wood chips."